


Memories

by ramenscribbles



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Kidnapping, Comfort Food, Family Feels, Fire Nation Royal Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26478286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ramenscribbles/pseuds/ramenscribbles
Summary: The Fire Nation Royal Family reminisce on their past trauma, and how it has shaped them.
Relationships: Elina & Izumi, Izumi & Zuko & Elina, Izumi & Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Zuko & Elina
Kudos: 5





	Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izumi has a dream about her kidnapping 4 years ago.

She was asleep when it happened.

All that Izumi could remember from the kidnapping was two warm hands picking her up from her bed. The princess assumed that it was her father, so she didn't dare open her eyes. She wanted to surprise him, by waking up while he carried her while making a loud noise. But that didn't happen.

Izumi felt something get forced down her throat, like a pill. Then, she felt a liquid, probably water, get forced down too, and in a few minutes, she was sound asleep again.

The next thing the 10-year-old remembers was waking up in a bed. But not her bed, it was different. The room looked like her room, but it wasn't. Something was... off.

She started hyperventilating. Izumi started harshly breathing in and out, tears violently going down her face. 

Izumi wanted to scream. To cry as much as she could. She wanted to kick and yell and make a mess and make as much as a ruckus as she could. But she didn't. She didn't know why, but somehow, deep inside of her, she knew that maybe if she did anything, her family would be hurt. Izumi stopped crying. Now, she was hiccuping and drying her tears.

Even though it didn't feel right, the young princess dosed off in her fake bedroom.

The next thing Izumi remembers happening is waking up in her fake bedroom again. The sun had just penetrated through her almost covered windows, waking her up. It wasn't a bad dream, after all, she thought to herself. 

Izumi got out of bed then tried to open the door. It wasn't opening. Tears threatened again. The young princess went back to her bed and laid down. A few minutes (maybe hours, Izumi couldn't tell) later, that same pair of warm hands from earlier flipped her on her side. The person forced pills and water down her throat, then laid her back in the same position as before. Like the first time, the pills made Izumi sleepy, and in just a few minutes, she was sound asleep.

The third time she had awoken, it was late at night. There was warm food on her nightstand, which she hastily ate. Izumi hadn't eaten since yesterday, and even with the food she was given, the girl was still hungry.

Izumi decided to look around her fake bedroom. She poked at the nearby drawers, which seemed real enough. She looked in the bathroom and saw all her stuff in the same place as she'd left them the other day. Izumi started to realize that maybe she was being locked in her own bedroom. But why? For what reason?

She knew that there were people who hated her father. They believed that he couldn't restore the honor of the Fire Nation or reverse the enigma and fear surrounding it. At times, Izumi believed the rebels. She had learned about the terrible things her forefathers had done, and sometimes thought it was almost impossible for her father to reverse it. Everyone was so scared of them. They thought they were monsters. 

Izumi hated being generalized just because of what her family had done in the past. The public was watching them. Waiting for them to make a mistake. Being perfect all the time her hurt, it hurt the whole family, especially Elina.

Elina was Izumi's older half-sister. They have the same father, but different mothers. Elina's mother left when she was two years old, neither she nor her father knew why. (Though, Elina always had a suspicion that her father knew something about her mother leaving.) Another odd thing about Elina was that she was an airbender AND a firebender. A firebender, obviously from their father, and an airbender, from her mother. Elina even had monk tattoos, which she hid using a headband and fingerless gloves. She could also speak to spirits and go into the Spirit World. Elina even had the power to even summon spirits at will. (But summoning a dead person's spirit was much easier than summoning a nature spirit.) Because of her bizarre powers, Elina was hidden from public view, which she didn't really like. She couldn't go anywhere outside of the palace or defend her father whenever someone said something bad about him. Elina wanted to debunk every common belief of the Fire Nation, but she couldn't because then she would be put in danger too. As she had once told their father once, "Having to worry about someone trying to you is much more exciting than staying inside all day!" Now, being in a situation that she was probably kidnapped, Izumi had strongly agreed. But now that she thought about it, Elina would thoroughly enjoy cursing out her captors.

Izumi chuckled. "You are an odd one, Elina, indeed."

The princess decided to take another nap, since all that thinking of how much the public hated her or how Elina would've loved being kidnapped, had made her tired. When she woke up, it was the afternoon, and there was more food for her. As Izumi ate, she began to wonder about what had happened to her family.

It was possible that someone had taken control of the palace and imprisoned her and her family in their own homes. But Izumi hadn't heard anything. No footsteps or screaming. (The first time Izumi and her family were trapped in their own homes, Izumi was 2 years old, and all she could remember was loud footsteps and screaming.) But at the same time, it could have been different people imprisoning them this time.

After Izumi had finished her food, she decided to try and open the door again. It was still locked. Izumi sighed and then went back to take another nap.

The next few days of Izumi's life was full of trying to open her door, constant napping, and eating at random times of the day.

One night, Izumi was soundly sleeping in her bed. Since she hadn't showered or cleaned up in a while, her sheets were stinky, clothes dirty, and hair a mess. The young princess felt pills being forced down her throat. She gagged. After that, she felt more pills get forced down her throat, then water. Izumi choked, and then coughed until she bled. She looked down at the pool of blood on the ground. It prompted her to start hyperventilating since she was very nervous. Then, she felt a hand on her shoulder and she screamed and sat up in her bed.

Her father, Zuko, and her half-sister, Elina were at her side. 

Izumi laid down in her bed again.

"Izu..." Zuko mumbled, "are you okay?"

Izumi shook her head. "I-I had a nightmare... about the kidnapping..." She choked up. "The day they took Mom-"

Elina slid into bed next to her half-sister. "Want me to stay here with you?"

"Sure," Izumi nodded.

"We can go to your mother's grave in the morning if you'd like," Zuko suggested.

"I'd like that," Izumi said, calming down, "I'd like that a lot..."

The next day, as the sun was starting to set, Izumi, Elina, and Zuko visited Mai's, Izumi's mother, grave. The now 14-year-old girl put some roses on her grave and said a few prayers. She traced her hands on her mother's name, carved into the gravestone. "I miss you, Mom. I miss you a lot." Tears rolled down Izumi's cheeks.

"I love you, Mom."


End file.
